hondo in seattle

While I'm not happy about Fred's release at all and may never fully forgive DW, it may have gone down like this... The BIlls sign Shady. With so much money tied up there, and other good cheap backs on the roster, Whaley decides to talk to Fred about him not making the roster. The Pegulas nix the cut when Whaley informs them. Whaley, based on what he now heard from the Pegulas, tells Fred he's going to stay a Bills after all. Whaley realizes that resigning Dareous (and others) is going to be difficult/impossible without some serious penny-pinching. He revisits the idea of cutting Fred with the Pegulas. This time he persuades them. From Fred's point of view, Whaley is a liar. But DW may have never actually intentionally lied to Fred. P.S. Today I'll be watching the game with the Bills Backers of Seattle wearing my #22 jersey.

I think we control the line of scrimmage. Bills 24, Colts 13 I've been waiting for those words!

I agree it was funny. But it was covered in another thread. http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/180694-cbs-sports-predicts-5-11/

Led Zeppelin with Jason Bonham on drums

Bloody fight till end Our big boys win the trenches Colts leave field vanquish'd

If we stay healthy, if the OL is truly improved, if Darby plays better than he has, and if TT plays in the regular season like he did in the preseason, then the Bills are certainly going to the playoffs. Yikes, there are more ifs than I like. But none are outrageously unrealistic. This could be a very good team.

Supposedly, the Jets coaches made a lot of jokes about his foot fetish at the time this first hit the media and Rex rolled with the punches with good humor. Maybe this photo was part of the hilarity?

It feels good to have high hopes... until those hopes come crashing down! "Best ever?" That's a lot to ask. I'm just hoping for a playoff appearance. The rest is gravy.

What does TT have on his professional resume? He's looked good in preseason. So have a lot of other failed QBs over the years. Playing against vanilla defenses and 2nd stringers can do that for a young QB. I hope TT becomes the next Russel Wilson. But right now you can't blame the national media for being skeptical. The Dean suggests that it would be more intelligent not to rank a QB who doesn't have meaningful NFL experience. This is true, but the media isn't about intelligence. It's about having an audience and making money. For them, having a controversial (or, even, an ill-informed) opinion is better than having no opinion at all.

Prisco is funny. I see 10-6, maybe 11-5.

Wishing I could go. Even though I have Sunday Ticket, I'll probably find the local Bills Backers and celebrate the season opener with them here in Seattle.

Because if a guy doesn't have meaningful NFL experience, they have to look at college performance. Mariota and Winston were better college QBs than TT.

When you win in the trenches, you usually win on the scoreboard. I'm looking forward to a fun Sunday.

My logic as well. It's interesting because the public personas are so different.

I'm not surprised TT won the starting job. Based on what I saw in preseason, though, I am surprised MC beat out EJ for #2. EJ produced more big plays and more point-scoring drives. All I saw from Cassell is the dink-and-dunk that has thus far characterized his mediocre career. I really thought EJ won the #2 spot easily. I wonder what the coaching staff saw on the practice field that might not have been evident on the playing field.

I thought it was interesting that TG took the flight with Freddy to Seattle in order to write a couple stories. Maybe competition with Dunne has inspired TG to work a little harder? Sully continues to be useless.

Maybe you're right, but I don't think this makes TT's leash shorter. And if he's looking over his shoulder, he's an idiot. He needs to work on his game and let the coaches worry about coaching decisions. I think this may actually be beneficial to TT, having a veteran QB in the QB room. I do think this is bad for EJ.

Turnovers do seem to be - to some extent - a random event. So do injuries which would also be very tough to predict. An injury to a QB could be devastating. Other injuries can also effect W/L records and it's hard for any model to account for injuries in a short season. I think we're a long way off from a statistical model predicting W-L significantly more accurately than an informed fan. Too many hard-to-account-for variables and random events.

I think CJ and Chandler will be nice role players for the new teams. Kiko, assuming his knee completely heals, will be a good starter. If we have any trouble stopping the run, we'll obviously miss Spikes. But I voted Freddy.

While it's true Rex 'threw Darby to the wolves,' as we've been reminded a few times now, it's still worrisome how poorly Darby played during preseason. Yep, he's a rookie. Yep, he's going to get better. But the Indy game is just a few days away. The question is what Rex will do about it. The obvious answer is that there will be a safety over the top. But what else? Rex and Dennis Thurman have good defensive minds. They're going to try to avoid giving Darby more than he's capable of doing.

To all those who bleed red, white, and royal blue, may our touchdowns be many and our injuries few. Here's to the Bills Super Bowl season!

I remember buying some football rag one preseason long ago and thought the articles and predictions were too optimistic - apparently a ploy to get hopeful fans who long for positive news to buy their magazine. I added up all the wins and losses predicted and somehow NFL franchises were going to win about 57% of their collective games. Maybe some contests against the CFL had been scheduled that year. That's when I realized the national media is more interested in making money than saying anything particularly insightful or accurate. I've taken predictions with a huge grain of salt ever since.

Roman's play-design and play-calling should make the line look good kind of like Gailey's offense made the OL back then look good when it wasn't really. The Indy game will be interesting for a lot of reasons. Many new players. Many new coaches. New offensive and defensive schemes. At this point, we're all full of hope but nothing is a given.

Overall, this squad is far better than the squad he took over. Thinking back a few years to the team Dick Jauron had... As much crap as fans like to give him about "It's hard to win in the NFL" - it was very hard with that roster. Thinking back to Chan Gailey... I remember being amazed for a while how he was able to generate some offense with very little talent. The team we're fielding now - Whaley's team - is far better. I don't blame Whaley for EJ because you have to gamble on QBs now and then, and EJ did look like a NFL QB this preseason. Like many, I was/am upset with Whaley for the way he mishandled Fred. But, like many, I see the logic. We had a lot of money tied in backups (MC, Fred) when we're being challenged to resign starters (Marcel, for instance).

I'm pretty much aligned with 26CB and mastershake... 200 yards passing 50 yards rushing 1 TD passing no picks or fumbles